Kim Basinger has played all the female archetypes, good and bad, in Hollywood, whether she's liked it or not. She was labeled as a sex symbol throughout the '80s and '90s, she's played the damsel in distress, the femme fatale, the matriarch, and now the cougar/dominatrix. She was even a Bond girl.
Some of these types of characters started to grate on her nerves after a while. Into the 2000s she didn't want to play the sexy woman or the motherly characters anymore. But when you get picky in Hollywood, roles start coming fewer and far between. She was an Academy Award-winning actress one day and gone the next.
There are a lot of other factors that have contributed to her seemingly abrupt disappearance from the spotlight, but she was technically always there in the background. Known as Alec Baldwin's ex-wife, mother of his first child, Ireland, Basinger has had an interesting career filled with highs and lows. Remember when she bought the town of Braselton, Georgia for $20 million?
Here's why Basinger's career declined in the 2000s.
She Was Once One Of The Most Promising Actresses
Even though modeling got her through the door, Basinger always wanted to be an actress instead. She broke out in 1976 and two years later, her world was turned upside down when she was cast as the Bond girl, Domino Petachi, alongside Sean Conery in Never Say Never Again.
She stayed the sex icon in films like 9 1/2 Weeks, and two of her famous roles, Vicky Vale in Batman (1989) and Lynn Bracken in L.A. Confidential (1997), for which she earned a Golden Globe and an Oscar.
After all of that success, her roles started to falter. She told People in 2013 that she was thankful that she's had such longevity, but she's been her own worst enemy when it comes to continuing her career as an actress. There are a couple of reasons why Hollywood won't cast her, but whether she cares remains to be seen.
According to Looper, she didn't do herself any favors when she posed for Playboy in the '80s. She probably thought those were great choices at the time but they ultimately typecast her as a sex symbol, something she had a hard time shaking.
She tried to break out of her sexy image by playing a mother in I Dreamed of Africa, but it didn't work with critics and tanked at the box office. When she played Eminem's mother in 8 Mile, she started to hate playing the motherly roles too. For the second time in her career, she was once again pigeonholed.
She did have mild success with The Door in the Floor in 2004, The Sentinel in 2006, and Grudge Match in 2013. But those roles didn't really wow her or anyone else either.
Then there were her roles in The Nice Guys, and Fifty Shades Darker, which is her last role. It's hard enough for women to get good roles past 40 but Basinger has been able to find work, albeit not the work she wants, well into her '60s. Whether she wants to take those roles is another issue.
It was like she was in the spotlight one minute and gone the next, completely out of our line of vision except for when she was leaving a trail of breadcrumb roles here and there over the years. So where did she go during her breaks from the industry?
She Enjoys A Low Key Life
More recently, Basinger said she likes to live a quiet life. She's complete reading a book by the beach every day or taking part "in all water sports, especially surfing," she told Georgia Today in 2017. She also likes writing. "I'm getting more into it these days, especially children's books."
She realizes her career has had its ups and downs but ultimately, all of her experience has taught her what she really wants from life, and the Hollywood lifestyle sometimes isn't it. That doesn't mean she's not thankful for still get roles though.
"I'm not a big red carpet girl. But I love the work," she told People in 2013. "In this business, you can be at the top of the world and at the bottom of the barrel, and you're grape juice. I've been at both ends. It can make you become what you really are."
She also dedicates a lot of her time to working with animal protection groups. In July 2019 she attended an event in South Korea that was protesting the dog meat industry.
There Are A Few Reasons Why She Doesn't Get Cast Anymore
Basinger's disappearance from the spotlight seems to come from herself as well as Hollywood's reluctance to cast her.
Along with being shy, suffering from anxiety and panic attacks, and thinking that she's just not cut out for stardom, socializing in Hollywood is not her specialty. She curbed her fears for the sake of her career, but they never really went away.
Her reluctance in taking roles in the past couple of decades also stems from the fact that she doesn't much enjoy how the industry has changed, especially with social media.
Then there are her 2016 comments about seeing the underbelly of Hollywood that probably put a bad taste in executive's mouths. "People think of Hollywood as this very liberal place, but if you look at the underbelly, the discoveries you'll make are mind-boggling," she told Net-A-Porter.
Despite having well-intentioned beliefs on a lot of things, Basinger has received flak for most of it. She was dubbed "radical chic" after campaigning to stop horse-drawn carriages from operating in New York City.
But one of the biggest reasons why Hollywood is less than thrilled to cast her is because she's been in a lot of films that have tanked. That doesn't seem to be an issue for her, she can either take Hollywood or leave it. She seems to like keeping one foot in and the other out. So don't count on her reprising Vicky Vale with Michael Keaton. Or maybe do, we're not really sure with her.